SERMON II.

GOD CREATED YOU TO BE GOOD AND HAPPY.

REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY

YOUTH.

My children will find the text of this my second sermon in that book of the Old Testament which is called Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, and was written by King Solomon. That book has been divided into twelve chapters; and the text is a part of the first verse of the twelfth chapter.

In my first sermon I told you how you could know that God is your Creator. I shall go on to tell you how you may remember your Creator in the days of your childhood and youth. For certainly, as he is your Creator, as he made you so wonderfully, and placed you in this world, and surrounded you with the other wonderful works of his hand, and gave you all that you have, you ought to remember him; that is, you ought to think of him often and seriously, and learn what it

is that he wishes you to do, and sincerely resolve and try to do it. Surely it must be very wrong for any one to forget the great Being who made him. I hope, my children, that you never will forget him, but will take care to remember him, in the days of your youth, and all the days of your life.

In order that you may learn what it is that your Creator wishes you to do, you must consider why it was that he made you. He must have had some purpose in making you; now, what was that purpose? For what did God make you? Did he not place you in a magnificent and beautiful world, and make it very pleasant for you to look upon all the grand and lovely sights which it contains? Is it not pleasant to exercise your bodily faculties, that is, to see, and hear, and to taste the food which God has provided for you, and to run about and play? And, is it not pleasant to exercise your mental faculties, that is, to get all the knowledge which is suitable to your age, and to feel that you are growing wiser as you grow older? And is it not pleasant to exercise your affections, that is, to love your friends, and be loved by them, and to be kind

and grateful and generous? Is not all this pleasant? Then you may be sure that God made you to be happy. And though you may be sometimes sick and in pain, and often unhappy, yet you are sensible that sickness and unhappiness are not your natural and proper state and condition, and therefore that you were not made for the purpose of being sick and unhappy; but that God's chief design in making you was that you should be healthy and happy. But then he did not make you to be happy at all events, and in any way, but only on certain conditions, and in one particular way. Let us see what that way is.

If you are ever so healthy, and are surrounded by everything that might make you comfortable, if at the same time you are in a violent passion, or have disobeyed and justly displeased your parents, or have done anything wrong, you are not comfortable, you are not happy. The sun may shine as brightly as ever, and the flowers smell as sweetly, and the birds sing as gayly, and yet, if you are not good, all this, and much more, will fail to give you pleasure, and you will be unhappy, even in the midst of happiness. On the other hand,

if you have been good, and have nothing on your mind which troubles you, you will enjoy all pleasant things with a double relish, and even bear many unpleasant things with patience. You cannot be really happy without being good; and therefore you may conclude, that though God made you to be happy, he made you to find your greatest happiness in being good.

It needs care to be good, I know; and sometimes it appears to be easier for children, and grown people too, to do wrong than to do right, notwithstanding they would be happy in doing right, and unhappy in doing wrong. But this does not prove that you are not made just as you ought to be, and made to be good and happy. I will call your attention. once more to the comparison of the organ. Suppose that a person should go up to it, and, without any skill or attention, strike about on the keys, wherever his hands might happen to fall. Instead of making music, he would make most terrible discord: yet it would not be fair to say, that the organ was built to make discord, would it? Surely not. It was built to make music, because, when it is

played upon properly, it does make music. It is an instrument of music, and not an instrument of discord, even though it may be easier to make discord on it than to make music. Music is pleasant; discord is not pleasant, but painful. We must believe that all the time and skill and expense which were devoted to the building of the organ were devoted to bring forth what should be pleasant, and not what should be painful. The organ may produce discord, and will produce discord if its keys are struck ignorantly and improperly. But not so, if they are touched with knowledge and care. Let the very person who made such discord with its tones take lessons in music, and pay attention to them, and strive to improve himself by practice, and then he will play on it better and better, committing mistakes, most probably, as he goes on, but still playing better and better, every day, till he draws forth music from it which charms himself and every one else.

It is very much the same with yourselves. You were made for goodness, virtue, holiness, which may be called spiritual music, or the music of the soul. Love, hope, fear, joy,